Primary cell cultures arising from normal kidney and renal cell carcinoma retain the proteomic profile of corresponding tissues.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tissue is composed of a mixture of neoplastic and normal cells, which complicate proteome analysis. The aim of our study was to investigate whether it is feasible to establish primary cell cultures of RCC and of renal cortex maintaining the tissue phenotype along with a more homogeneous and enriched cytological material. Fourteen (82.3%) primary cultures from 17 surgical cases were established and characterized by morphology, growth rate, immunocytochemistry, and molecular analysis performed by Real-time PCR, Western blotting, two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE), and mass spectrometry. Cultures showed >90% cytokeratine-positive epithelial cells. In primary tumor cultures, the molecular phenotype of manganese superoxide dismutase and heat shock protein 27 was the same as that found in tumor tissues with overexpression and increased number of isoforms. Moreover, 27 out 28 specific proteins and their isoforms, present in spots excised from 2-DE gel of cortex or RCC cultures, corresponded to those identified on the 2-DE tissue cortex reference map, suggesting that these primary cultures retain the proteomic profile of the corresponding tissues.

N- and C-terminal isoforms of Arg quantified by real-time PCR are specifically expressed in human normal and neoplastic cells, in neoplastic cell lines, and in HL-60 cell differentiation.

The human ABL2 (or ARG) gene codes for a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase is involved in translocation with the ETV6 gene in human leukemia and has an altered expression in several human carcinomas. Two isoforms of Arg with different N-termini (1A and 1B) have been described. The C-terminal domain of Arg contains two F-actin-binding sequences that perform a number of actions related to cell morphology and motility by interacting with actin filaments. We have identified different-sized specific cDNAs in hematopoietic, epithelial, nervous, and fibroblastic cells by means of the reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of human Arg mRNA. Some of these cDNAs showed an adjunctive alternative splice event involving the 63 bp sequence of exon II, thus leading to four cDNA types with different N-termini: 1A long and short, and 1B long and short. Other cDNAs lacked a 309 bp sequence in the last exon involving one of the C-terminal F-actin binding domains, thus giving rise to two cDNA types: C-termini long and short. Quantified by real-time PCR-quantitative RT-PCR-these Arg transcript isoforms have specific expression patterns not only in different normal and tumor cell types, but also during cell differentiation and growth arrest. These isoforms maintained the open reading frames, and eight putative proteins were predicted. The different C-termini isoforms seem to retain the same quantitative reciprocal ratio of their respective transcripts. The Arg protein isoforms with different C-terminal actin-binding domains and different N-termini might have specific cellular localizations/concentrations, and differently regulated catalytic activity with different implications in normal and neoplastic cells.

Neuroendocrine and biologic features of primary tumors and tissue in pulmonary large cell carcinomas.

BACKGROUND: Because biological behavior in lung tumors with neuroendocrine differentiation is highly dependent on cell death (apoptosis) and angiogenesis, p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density have been targeted as potentially useful tumor markers. We sought to validate the importance of p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density and study their interrelationship, analyzing clinical factors, subclassifications, and tumor and stromal markers. METHODS: We examined p21(waf1/cip1) and other markers in tissue from 61 patients with surgically excised large cell carcinomas. The amount of tumor staining for p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and morphometry. The study outcome was survival time until death from recurrent lung cancer. RESULTS: Multivariate Cox model analysis demonstrated that after surgical excision, histologic subtypes were significantly related to survival time (p = 0.02), but quantitative staining of the tumor for p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density added prognostic information and these variables were more strongly prognostic than histologic subtype (p = 0.00). Cut points at the median staining of 3.5% and 3.0% for p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density, respectively, divided patients into two groups with distinctive survival times. Patients with p21(waf1/cip1) staining of more than 3.5% and microvessel density staining of more than 3.0% had a median survival time of 14 months. CONCLUSIONS: Tumor staining for p21(waf1/cip1) and microvessel density in resected large cell carcinomas and certain other types of lung tumors was strongly related to survival. Patients with more than 3.0% staining in their tumors were at high risk of death from lung cancer and may be an appropriate target for prospective studies of adjuvant chemotherapy after surgical resection.